An Evaluation of the Impact of State Government’s Taxation Regime on Business Prospect Development in Calabar, Cross River State Nigeria

The thrust of this research paper is to properly ascertain the true perspective of the State Government’s tax regime on business prospect development by investors or entrepreneurs in Calabar, Cross River State Nigeria.  The avowed objective is to ascertain how well the tax policy is favourable or otherwise to business developers in the State.  It borders on evaluating the economics environment and relating it directly to the tax policy regime in the research area.  Literature review was carried out to explore the general view of issues pertaining to the topic under consideration. The research adopted the de facto descriptive survey design aimed at collecting data from 300 purposively sampled respondents in the research area using a well-structured questionnaire. The data collected was then analysed using the Chi–square statistical technique at 0.05 level of significance. The result revealed the values of x2calulated = 287.792, x2tabulated = 40.1133, at (r-1) * (c-1) = (4-1) * (10-1) = 27 Degree of Freedom (DF). Since x2calulated (287.792) is greater than x2tabulated (40.1133), we rejected the null hypothesis Ho in favour of the alternative hypothesis H1, which implied that there is significant impact of the State Government taxation regime on business prospect development and the State Government tax regime is not friendly or progressive. The research paper recommends that the State Government as a matter of expediency should undertake a pragmatic review of its tax regime towards enhancing a conducive economic environment as well as the sustainability of urban lives in the State and at the same times creating a workable synergy between them and the Government.